Bazelon - Sticks and stones: the new problem of bullying and how to solve it

Copyright 2013 by Emily Bazelon

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Random House, an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

R ANDOM H OUSE and colophon are registered trademarks
of Random House, Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bazelon, Emily.
Sticks and stones : defeating the culture of bullying and rediscovering the power of character and empathy / by Emily Bazelon.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-679-64400-2
1. Bullying. 2. BullyingPrevention. 3. Bullying in schools.
4. Bullying in schoolsPrevention. I. Title.
BF637.B85B39 2013
302.343dc23 2012022773

www.atrandom.com

Cover design: Bonnie Siegler, Eight and a Half, New York
Cover photograph: Don Farrall/Getty Images

v3.1

Prologue

W HEN I WAS IN EIGHTH GRADE, MY FRIENDS FIRED ME . T WO and a half decades later, I can say that wryly: it happened to plenty of people, and look at us now, right? We survived. But at the time, in that moment, it was impossible to have that kind of perspective. Being rejected by the girls I loved left me crawling with insecurity and self-doubtwhat had I done wrong? I disappeared from the lunchroom and hid during free periods. I dreaded the words choose a partner in class, especially gym, where you could either pair up and scamper away or stand there alone. At home I cried. On some level, I guess, I knew that I wasnt the only lonely thirteen-year-old in the world, but how did that help, really? Instead of finding some inner source of comfort, I picked myself apartwas I too bossy? Irritating? Self-absorbed? What was it that had driven them away? What was wrong with me?

My parents asked why I would care so much about friends who acted this way, and suggested gently that I make new ones. In retrospect, it was good, rational advice, but I couldnt take it, not then. I couldnt see past my own flaws. I couldnt imagine that anyone would want to be my friend ever again.

I was eventually rescued from my exile by someone elses travails. Allie, a girl in my grade I didnt know well, had been close friends with two girls, Heather and Lucy, who, in the span of one summer, had grown into tall and beautiful Madonna acolytes, and knew it. Suddenly they had the attention of every boy they beckoned. This sounds like the script of a John Hughes movie, I realize, but its true. Heather and Lucy, newly emboldened, decided to drop Allie much as my friends had dropped meonly they didnt stop there. Because they had status, they could really make her suffer. When they started calling Allie squid, as in nerd, everyone began calling her squid. (Never mind that we went to a progressive Quaker school: in eighth grade, good grades were social death.) They sat behind her in assembly and threw bits of paper in her hair and laughed. Some of the popular boys joined in, too, one-upping each other in their efforts to make Allie miserableand to prove their allegiance to Heather and Lucy. One group of boys, whenever they passed Allie in the hallway, would stick their thumbs and forefingers to their foreheads in the shape of an L, chanting L, L, Lloser. Then, one day, she was walking through school alongside a boy whom shed been friends with for a year, and as they pushed through the doors to go outside he lunged, knocking her down onto the leaf-strewn walkway. He laughed. I was scared, Allie told me, remembering. No one had ever done anything like that to me physically before. It was so out of nowhere. I dont remember there being people around, so it wasnt like he did it to impress anyoneit was just the two of us. I was so shocked I dont think I even said anything.

Allies mother had the same logical response my parents didwhen your supposed friends turn on you, make new ones. She convinced Allie that what was happening to her wasnt her fault; she just needed allies. She persuaded her to call me. We hadnt talked much before that, but our parents knew each other and we had plenty in common, since I was a squid whod been dumped, too. We both remember those first hesitant moments on the phone in those late fall days of eighth gradenot what we said exactly, but the exquisite relief of connecting. We talked forever that night. I remember going into my parents bedroom and closing the door, and lying on their bed and twisting the phone cord between my fingers, Allie said. It was like we were therapists for each other, talking out our situations, trusting each other to understand what was happening.

Out of some combination of survival instinct, genuine affection, and pure need, we became a unit. We sat next to each other in French class, slept at each others houses on weekends, listened to David Bowie, and took pictures of each other, our faces expressionless and too close to the camera.

Id like to say that we rescued each other, but thats only partly true. Just before their friendship ended, Lucy had invited Allie to a slumber party and given her a pair of jeans to wear home and keep, because thats what good girlfriends do. Post-jilting, Lucy asked for the jeans back. The problem was, Allie had gotten her period in them and stained them. When Allie returned the jeansand on this point her mother gave her bad adviceLucy was furious. She told all the boys what had happened, and then she and Heather paid the boy in our class with the loudest voice to walk into the lunchroom and scream, Allie bled all over Lucys jeans! We were going down those dark steps into the cafeteria, and he was ahead of me, and then as we went through the doors he yelled it at the top of his lungs, Allie remembered. It was definitely planned. It was the peak hour for lunch, with everyone there to see and hear, and at the bottom of the steps there was a platform area, so it was as if I was standing onstage. It was just horrendousI wanted to die. And I dont remember anybody helping me. I think I ran into the bathroom by myself.

Listening all these years later, I tried to picture myself in the lunchroom that day, next to Allie. Im sure I was there. Im also sure I didnt do what I wish Id doneI didnt stand up for her. No one did. I remember feeling like I should have followed her when she ran out of the lunchroom, offering her assurance and solidarity. Yet I didnt move.

I cant claim to have been bullied, at least not like the teenagers you are going to read about in this book, but I know the feeling of watching powerful kids rip a vulnerable one apart and not knowing how to blunt their power. I have kids of my own now, and I can see the old patterns beginning to assert themselves among some of their peers. My own eighth-grade cowardice makes me want to figure out how to help other kids do better.

Today, Allies word for that year is raw. It was pretty hellish, and yes, raw, like this wound that was incredibly intense and painful, she told me. Talking about it makes some of that creep backthat vulnerable, weak feeling, like theres something wrong with me. I have my whole life experience to tell me thats not actually true, so I know that now, but those feelings are still there. I can still tap into them.